Salaried GP HMP Edinburgh/Addiewell

Edinburgh is operated by Scottish Prison Service (SPS) and has an average daily prison population of 900 prisoners, which since July 2011 has included up to 114 women offenders.  Addiewell is a private prison operated by Sodexo Justice Services (SJS) on behalf of SPS, with a population of 796 prisoners all of whom are male

Typically, a prison receives un-convicted (remand), short-term prisoner/patients and long-term prisoner/patients and occasionally young offenders and specific category prisoner/patients.  At any one time a minority of prisoner/patients will be on remand, un-sentenced or awaiting sentencing or deportation with a majority serving a sentence.

Prisoners in
can be defined as a unique population. They are overwhelmingly young (average age 33), white (98%), male (95%) and drawn from a very narrow section of the general population.

Most prisoner/patients have had little or no regular contact with comprehensive health services before entering prison and their lifestyles are more likely to have put them at risk of ill health. Nationally, the evidence of health inequalities amongst prisoner/patients is strong. Prisoner/patients have poorer physical and mental health than the general population, with mental illness, self-harm and suicide risk, drug dependency and communicable diseases being the most dominant problems.

In delivering healthcare to prisoner/patients, the post holder will work within a multi-disciplinary team including nurses, physiotherapist, dentists, pharmacists, prison officers, social workers and other professionals.  They will also be expected to work closely with any health in-reach services such as infectious disease specialists, forensic psychiatrists, optician and podiatrist.

• The nursing and healthcare support staff teams at both prisons consist of a Health Care Manager, two Senior Charge Nurses, Primary Care nurses, Addictions nurses and Mental Health nurses, as well as Health Care Assistants, Pharmacy Assistants and Admin Assistants. 
• The Primary Care nurses are mainly responsible for medication administration, initial assessment of new admissions and patient triage / management of minor ailments – which may result in patients being listed for a GP clinic.  Some members of the Primary Care Nurse team deliver reviews of patients with chronic diseases.
• Mental Health and Addictions nurses manage their own caseloads. They accept internal referrals as well as self-referrals from patients.
• Out of hours care for patients is provided by the Lothian Unscheduled Care Service.
• The practice uses Vision and Docman computer systems.
• Protected Learning Time occurs on around eight afternoons per year, where the whole practice can close for a joint educational meeting.

The working week is from Monday to Friday, with a share of Saturday mornings. This is a 3hr session to assess court admissions from Friday afternoon and evening.  Weekday time off in lieu of one 4hr 10min session is given for each Saturday morning worked. There are very occasional Sunday mornings when there is a Saturday court (1 – 2 per annum).